Culture

Mongolian BBQ

The dish is rumored to be so named because in prewar Japan, lamb was widely thought to be the meat of choice among Mongolian soldiers, and the dome-shaped skillet is meant to represent the soldiers' helmets that they purportedly used to cook their food.In 1918, according to the plan by the Japanese government to increase the flock to one million sheep, five sheep farms were established in Japan. However, all of them were demolished except in Hokkaido.Because of this, Hokkaido's residents first began eating the meat from sheep that they sheared for their wool.

There is a dispute over from where the dish originated; candidates include Tokyo, Zaō Onsen, and Tōno. The first Jingisukan dedicated restaurant was a Jingisu-sō (Genghis House) that opened in Tokyo in 1936.Typically, diners choose various ingredients from a display of thinly sliced raw meats (beef, pork, lamb, turkey, chicken, shrimp) and vegetables (cabbage, tofu, sliced onion, cilantro, broccoli, and mushrooms, pineapple, lychee), and put them in a bowl or on a plate. These ingredients are given to the griddle operator who adds the diner's choice of sauce and transfers them to one section of the hot griddle. Oil and sometimes water may be added to ease cooking, and the ingredients are stirred occasionally.Now, the typical jingisukan dish consists of mutton or lamb cooked with plenty of vegetables in a round metal skillet with a bulge in the middle.These days, Mongolian mutton barbecue draws attention as healthy diet since sheep meat is rich in nutrition but light on calories.